4
It took a long time to get through but Berlin hung on because he was desperate. He had got a handful of sixpences and shillings from the porter Wilkins. He had found the number from directory enquiries. He dialled, waited, inserted his coins.
‘I would like to speak to Mr Pountney please.’
‘Trying to connect you,’ a girl’s voice said.
There was a ringing tone but no one answered. He waited. If he hung on long enough surely someone would have to answer. Be patient.
‘Hello?’ Another woman’s voice.
‘Mr Pountney please.’
‘I’ll try to find him. Just a moment.’
He heard a muffled conversation. He heard someone ask: ‘Is Gerry back from Berlin?’ ‘Last night,’ came the reply. Then silence. Suddenly a new voice asked: ‘Who do you want?’
‘I am waiting for Mr Pountney.’
‘I don’t know if he’s here. Who shall I say is calling?’
‘Say a friend from his past. He won’t remember my name.’
‘All right.’
More muffled conversation. Then a series of clicks. For a moment he thought he’d been cut off. Patience, he said to himself again. Someone picked up the receiver.
‘This is Gerald Pountney.’
Berlin felt a moment of intense relief. He had found Pountney. He was his last hope.
‘Hello? Are you still there?’
‘I am Andrei Berlin.’
‘Who?’
‘We met in Moscow some years ago. We were introduced at a concert by Annabel Leigh. Does that jog your memory?’
‘Good heavens. Where are you? Not in Moscow, surely.’
‘At this moment I am in Cambridge as the guest of the university. I am here for a few days to give a series of lectures.’
‘We must meet,’ Pountney said. What was Berlin up to? Was he allowed off the leash at all? Berlin didn’t understand. Did he have any free time? What about lunch tomorrow? Yes, he would like that. Pountney would come to Cambridge, he hadn’t been back for years, it would be a pleasure seeing the old place again. They’d go to one of his favourite pubs where the beer was good and the food was passable.
‘All set then,’ Pountney said.
‘It would seem so, yes.’
‘One question before I ring off. How did you know where to find me?’
‘It was not difficult,’ Berlin said. ‘I saw you on television. You haven’t changed a bit.’
5
Hart tried the Television Centre but Pountney wasn’t there. He’d gone to Cambridge for the day, he was told. He’d be back later in the afternoon. Hart tried his flat on the off chance but the phone rang unanswered. Damn. He needed to alert Pountney that the girl had been found dead and Koliakov had gone missing. The Soviet Embassy was denying this, but his own people had reported that the Russian hadn’t been back to his flat for two nights now. Had he killed the girl? Until they knew the cause of death, it was hard to say. Murdering a prostitute wasn’t Koliakov’s style, but then visiting her wasn’t either. Was it likely that he would have killed her to destroy the evidence Pountney might give Smolensky? The Russian had always struck him as a circumspect man who did nothing instinctively. Every act was carefully weighed. Maybe somewhere along the line he had missed a vital clue about Koliakov and he was misreading him. Somehow, though, he did not see the Russian as a murderer.
Why had Pountney gone to Cambridge? Then he remembered. Pountney had met Berlin in Moscow, He’d identified him in the photograph as the man talking to Viktor Radin. Why would Pountney want to see Berlin? What was the connection – unless Berlin had asked to see him.
He telephoned the college. Dr Berlin was out, he was told. They had no idea when he would be back. Hart left a number Berlin was to ring when he returned. He didn’t hold out much hope that he would call back, not after his rejection of Berlin’s message. But it was all he could do.
6
‘Why did you contact me?’ Pountney asked. They were sitting outside the Anchor, watching the water spill over the weir.
‘You are the only person I know in this country.’
‘You sound as if you need help.’
‘I do,’ Berlin said.
‘Fire away.’
‘It is a long story. You must be patient with me. It begins weeks ago with an invitation to lecture at Cambridge, which I accept because to come here has been my dream for many years. I am an academic historian, as you know. I teach students in Moscow, I do research. I live a normal life.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘Normal, you understand, by Soviet standards. During the summer, this crisis builds up in Germany. The political situation gets worse. The Wall is built dividing Berlin. The First Secretary announces this orbiting satellite from which no city or installation in the West will be safe. I become very pessimistic about my visit. I fear my invitation will be withdrawn for political reasons. I continue to prepare my lectures. Nothing happens. No one says to me, no, you may not come. Suddenly here I am and everyone is very kind. I am grateful for that.’
‘The university would resist any pressure from the government, but it’s unlikely the government would want to get involved.’ Pountney smiled at him. ‘Our universities are very independent, you know.’
‘A few days before I leave Moscow, I am summoned to accompany the Commander of the Army, Marshal Gerasimov, in his car. I am mystified. I do not know Gerasimov. I am not told why he wants to see me.’
‘I’ve heard of Gerasimov,’ Pountney said. ‘Isn’t he a communist of the old guard?’
Berlin nods in agreement. ‘When we are alone in his car, he says that when I go to the West, I must deliver a message from him to a senior member of British Intelligence. It is important information about the Soviet readiness for war.’
‘You want me to help you make contact with our Intelligence Service, is that it?’
‘No, no,’ Berlin says. ‘I have delivered my message to your people as I was instructed. I have already fulfilled my obligation. The problem is, your Intelligence Service does not believe that the message I bring is true. They have rejected what I have told them. That is why I contacted you.’
7
Koliakov woke refreshed. He looked at his watch. He had been asleep for nearly an hour. The reflection from the street lamp cast a square of light onto the wall of his room above the bed. He gazed at it for a while. Then he yawned and got up. It was time to begin. He sat down at the small table, switched on the light and fed the first sheet into his typewriter.
Minutes of the 107th Meeting of the Disinformation Committee, dated 11 July 1961.
Present: Major-General N. I. Sharankov (chairman), Col. V. Medvedev, Col. G. Koliakov (observer).
Could he remember all the names of the committee? There were nine of them present that night. He thought hard: ‘Major L. Simonov, B. I. Chuikov, M. Shtemenko, P. Rotmistrov, A. Sokolov, G. Vasilevksy.’
The chairman said it was his sad duty to report the death the previous day of the Chief Designer of the Soviet space programme. The members of the Committee offered their condolences to the First Secretary on the loss of this great servant of the state.
He thought back to that stifling, interminable evening, reliving his feeling of near-suffocation, his frustration at the inactivity of the committee, how the passivity of his fellow Committee members, so afraid of sticking their necks out, had extended the evening into the early hours while the intensity of the heat had built up. He remembered Medvedev’s assured performance – he already clearly knew of his impending promotion – and the way he pushed himself forward into the limelight.
The chairman reminded the Committee that, although little was known of the identity of the Chief Designer outside the Soviet Union, all their intelligence confirmed that the West ascribed the overwhelming successes of the Soviet space programme to his genius. His reputation was a major strategic advantage in the battle against the enemies of socialism. The First Secretary had instructed that the Chief Designer’s
death should not rob the Soviet Union of this unique advantage. It was the Committee’s task now to devise strategies that would convince the West that the Chief Designer was still alive and working on new projects.
Koliakov smiled with a grim pleasure. As minute-writer, he was the master of his own universe. He could make his players perform as he chose. He would switch roles. What he had actually proposed, he would now ascribe to Medvedev. He would rewrite his own part in the proceedings as that of a passive member of the Committee, anonymously nodding through the proposal when a show of hands was called for. Medvedev would take the glory as the architect of the deception. How that would please him – if he ever came to hear of it.
Col. V. Medvedev reminded the Committee that in 1947 he had uncovered the ‘Peter the Great’ plot against the state, and that subsequently he had successfully poisoned the line of communication established by the traitors to convince the West that the Soviet Union was far behind in the development of a nuclear bomb. This disinformation had had its effect. For months, the West had slowed its efforts, to the great advantage of the Soviet bloc. Meanwhile, social opposition to nuclear weapons had blossomed in Europe, making the management and deployment of nuclear bombs much more difficult.
He would like that, Koliakov thought. His career was based on his one moment of glory. It was always in his interest to remind others of what he had done.
On the same basis, Col. Medvedev now proposed that false information be passed to the West about the imminent launch of an orbiting satellite capable of firing from space missiles fitted with nuclear warheads, from which no location in America would be safe. Such an ambitious project, he stated, could only come from the mind of the Chief Designer. The West would assume, he was sure, that the announcement had the sanction of the Chief Designer. What further proof was needed that he was alive and working?
The Committee asked if this was a project under consideration by any department within the Space Commission. Col. Medvedev assured the meeting that it was not. The idea, he declared, was his own invention. After a thorough discussion, the Committee endorsed the deception and suggested that it now be forwarded to the policy-making group. The chairman confirmed that this would happen within forty-eight hours and that the proposal would become policy immediately thereafter.
Forty minutes later Koliakov had finished. He had embellished the detail of the proposal with some new ideas of his own. He reread his text with quiet satisfaction. Nothing he had written was inauthentic. It was as close to the truth as he could go. He smiled to himself. Only the names had been changed, to incriminate the guilty.
He extracted the carbon copy and laid it carefully face down on the table. He burned the top copy of the minutes together with the carbon paper, crushing them in an ashtray before sluicing the blackened remains into the basin.
He wrote at the head of the copy of the minutes: ‘Mr Pountney. The information you have been waiting for.’ Then he folded it, sealed it in an envelope on which he wrote Pountney’s address, attached a stamp and, locking his door behind him, went out into the night in search of a postbox.
8
Berlin heard the sound of her shoes on the wooden stairs, a quick knock at the door and she burst in.
‘Thank God you’re here. I was so worried yesterday.’ She was in his arms, kissing him. ‘I began to think something had happened to you.’ She drew back from him, embarrassed by her impetuosity. ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know what you must think of me.’
He looked at her worried expression. Was that the sum of the complications in her life – anxiety about where he’d been? It was her innocence, the simplicity of this woman that made him draw her to him and kiss her. He felt her arms around his neck, and the passion within her.
‘I had to see someone yesterday. I should have told you. I’m sorry.’
‘I was in a panic all day. You must think that ridiculous.’ She stood back, holding both his hands. ‘I convinced myself something awful had happened to you. I imagined our Intelligence people had found you, and whisked you away to some secret location for questioning.’
‘Nothing like that.’ He smiled at her. ‘I had to do a commission for a friend. I had a gift to deliver.’
It was a familiar pattern, half lie, half truth. Was there no escape from a world of deceit?
‘And today?’ she asked.
‘Today?’ He smiled. ‘I have no plans for today.’
‘Then I claim the rest of today as mine,’ she replied.
*
‘Come in.’
Her apartment was on the first floor of a row of Victorian houses in a part of Cambridge that his imagination had never reached. He was, he realised, out of his depth. He knew no landmarks: this was unknown territory. It was light, filled with books, sparsely furnished, and yet it was completely hers. What she needed she had, no more, no less.
‘Can I get you something?’
Before he could answer she was in his arms again, pulling him through the room, pushing her hand through his hair, murmuring his name and other words he could not distinguish, her eyes half closed, her lips all over this face, his hands, his fingers. For a moment, until he overcame his surprise and succumbed, she was fighting for him. Then, as she sensed that she had won, her gestures became less frantic and more assured, the desperation replaced by warmth.
He undressed her slowly, touching her body with care, as if too sudden a movement might damage it. Her skin was very white, like china, and she trembled under the touch of his fingers. Her eyes were closed, she was alive only in the world of her senses. All inhibitions, all barriers had fled. She was his completely.
*
The morning sun poured in through the open window. The warmth made her stretch herself as she woke up.
‘Hello?’ she said smiling. ‘Was that a dream, or did it really happen?’
‘I would be disappointed if it were only a dream,’ he said.
‘Oh, Andrei.’ She held him tightly in her arms. ‘I will never let you go now. You know that, don’t you?’
I never want you to let me go, he thought. But I know I will have to.
*
He heard a clock chiming, and the strange echo that he was getting used to of other clocks chiming across the town but never quite in harmony. He forgot to count the number of strokes. He no longer had any idea of the time.
He slept after that. If he had dreams they left him unscathed. As he awoke he felt that he had been washed clean, like standing naked under a fountain as the water streamed over him. He was renewed, and for the moment at least, the cares of the world that he carried with him were pushed aside. Not for long, he told himself. To escape for ever was impossible. But for now – for now he must celebrate his moments of freedom.
‘I fell in love with you the moment I saw you,’ she said suddenly. ‘The moment you came through the barrier.’
He laughed and said: ‘I knew something had happened.’ He regretted what he had said immediately. How arrogant can you be?
‘I couldn’t believe what I felt. You appeared, and the next instant I was in the control of a force more powerful than any I have encountered before. After I left you that night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept worrying what you must have thought of me. I know I didn’t stop talking. I feel very ashamed of my behaviour.’
‘It was the kindest thing you could have done,’ he said. ‘I was too overwhelmed to speak.’
‘Overwhelmed?’
‘By what was happening to me.’
‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Tell me everything.’
He sat up against the pillow. ‘I have always known that Cambridge held my destiny. That is why I tried so hard to come here, and I was always so disappointed when my attempts failed. Even when you wrote to me with your invitation, I did not allow myself to believe it would happen. I expected some malign force to intervene and prevent me from leaving Moscow. Now do you understand why I could hardly speak when we had dinner in that restaurant, with all those people around
us? I could not believe that what I had dreamed of for so long was happening to me. It was a very emotional moment. That is why I was happy to listen.’
She kissed him, and he felt her body against him.
*
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked.
He laughed. ‘I was hoping you would ask that.’
‘Stay there,’ she commanded.
He watched her get out of bed. There was an unrealised beauty about her. It was not the slimness of her body nor the whiteness of her skin, it was her unawareness of what she was. How strange that this woman should hide herself behind her glasses and the full clothes she wore, loose skirts, loose shirts, as if she were concealing herself among so many layers of disguise. Who was she when she was naked? He knew now. He understood. She was a woman who had satisfied so much in her life but not her craving for love. She yearned for affection, for companionship. That is what he had felt when he first saw her. They were both lonely people for whom love had brought no happiness.
Until now.
*
She knelt down beside the bed and put the tray on the sheets.
‘I hope it’ll do,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t really prepared for this.’
‘It’s wonderful,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
She poured him a glass of wine from an opened bottle – had she been drinking alone? She put salad and cold meat on his plate. She got in beside him, kissed him lightly on the lips and then more deeply on the shoulder. She laughed and pushed the tray away.
‘I don’t mind how hungry you are,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to eat later.’
*
By the time he awoke, the sun had moved and the room was in shadow. He did not dare to look at his watch. Time is the enemy of happiness, he thought. All joy is short-lived. The trick is to live as intensely as you can within the moment. This moment must last for as long as it could. He must absorb every second into his memory, he must be able to recapture every moment of this extraordinary day when this woman had revealed herself to him, holding nothing back. There was no concealment in what she felt for him. He knew that she loved him, he had known it before he had kissed her hand on that first day and looked into her eyes and seen the words imprinted there, as clear as if they had been a poster on a wall enjoining him to sacrifice now in order to forge a path to the radiant future.
Dr Berlin Page 36